The Lady of the Rivers (13 page)

I ride my horse every morning, with an armed escort of ten men ahead of me and ten behind, and Woodville at my side. We go through the streets of Paris, looking away from the beggars starving in the gutters, and we ignore the people who stretch out imploring hands. There is terrible poverty in the city and the countryside is all but waste, the farmers cannot get their produce to market, and the crops are constantly trampled by one or other of the armies. The men run away from their villages and hide in the forests for fear of being recruited or hanged as traitors, so there is no-one but women to work the fields. The price of bread in the city is more than a man can earn, and besides, there is no work but soldiering and the English are late with their wages again. Woodville gives orders that we must ride at a hand-gallop through the streets, not just for fear of beggars but also for fear of disease. My predecessor, the Duchess Anne, died of a fever after visiting the hospital. Now my lord swears that I shall not so much as speak to a poor person, and Woodville rushes me through the streets and I don’t draw breath until we are out of the city gates and going through what once were busy gardens, the fertile tilled land that lies between the city walls and the river. Only then does Woodville order the armed men to halt and dismount, and wait for us, while the two of us ride down to the river and take the tow path and listen to the water as if we were a couple riding in a countryside at peace.

We go companionably, side by side, and talk of nothing of any importance. He helps me with my riding, I have never ridden so fine a horse as Merry, and he shows me how to straighten up in the saddle, and gather her up so she curves her neck and stretches out her stride. He shows me how he rides a cavalry charge, bent low over the horse’s neck, going ahead of me down the track and thundering back towards us, pulling up at the last moment so Merry sidles and dances on the spot. He teaches me how to jump, getting off his horse to drag little branches of wood across the deserted track, building them higher and higher as my confidence increases. He teaches me the exercises his father taught him in the lanes of England, riding exercises to improve balance and courage: sitting sideways like a girl riding pillion, lying backwards across the horse, with the saddle in the small of my back, while the horse jogs along, sitting up tall and stretching one arm then another up to the sky, crouching down low to touch my stirrups, anything which accustoms the horse to the idea that it must go on steadily and safely, whatever the rider does, whatever happens around it.

‘More than once my horse has taken me to safety when I was hurt and didn’t have a clue where we were going,’ Richard says. ‘And my father held the standard before Henry V of England, and so he rode at a gallop all the time, with only one hand on the reins. You will never ride in battle, but we might run into trouble here or in England, and it is good to know that Merry will carry you through anything.’

He dismounts and takes my stirrups and crosses them out of the way, in front of me. ‘We’ll do a mile at trot, without stirrups. To improve your balance.’

‘How should we ride into trouble?’ I ask as he gets back on his own horse.

He shrugs. ‘Tere was a plan to ambush the duke only a few years ago as they came back to Paris and he and the Duchess Anne had to take to the forest tracks and ride round the enemy camp. And I hear that the roads in England are now as unsafe as those in France. There are robbers and highwaymen on every English road, and near the coast there are pirates who land and take captives and sell them into slavery.’

We start off at a walk. I seat myself more firmly in the saddle and Merry’s ears go forwards. ‘Why does the King of England not guard his coasts?’

‘He’s still a child and the country is ruled by his other uncle, Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester. My lord and the Duke of Gloucester are the royal uncles, each regents of France and England, until the king takes his power.’

‘When will he do that?’

‘He should have done it by now, really,’ Woodville says. ‘He is twelve years old; a boy still, but old enough to rule with good advisors. And he has been crowned at Notre Dame in Paris, and in England, and he has a parliament and a council which have promised to obey him. But he is guided by his uncle the Duke of Gloucester, and all of his friends; and then his mind is changed by his other kinsman, Cardinal Beaufort, a very powerful and persuasive man. Between the two of them he is blown about one way to another, and he never sees our lord the Duke of Bedford, who can do no more than write to him and try to keep him to one path. They say that he does the bidding of the person who spoke to him last.

‘But anyway, even if he were older, or firmer, there would be no money to pay for defences from the sea, and the English lords don’t make the rule of law run through their lands as they should. Now we shall trot.’

He waits for me to squeeze my legs on Merry and she goes forwards into a trot with me sitting heavily, like a fat cavalry knight, deep in the saddle.

‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘Now go forwards to canter.’

‘You said trot!’

‘You’re doing so well,’ he says with a grin. I urge Merry on and she goes into her quick-paced canter. I am a little afraid without the stirrups to use as balance but he is right, I can sit in the saddle and grip with my legs as we go cantering down the tow path until he gives the hand-signal to slow, then pull up.

‘Why do I have to learn this?’ I ask breathlessly as he dismounts again to restore my stirrups.

‘In case you lose your stirrups, or one breaks, or if we have to ride away some time, when we can get hold of horses but no saddles. It’s good to be prepared for anything. Tomorrow we will practise riding bareback. I shall make you into a horsewoman. Already you could be trusted on a long ride.’

He swings back into his own saddle and we turn the horses’ heads for home.

‘And why don’t the English lords make the rule of law run through the country?’ I ask, returning to our conversation. ‘In France there are two rules of law, two kings. But at least the lords are obedient to the king who rules in their part.’

‘In England, they each make their own little lordship,’ he says. ‘They use the troubled times as a screen to serve themselves, to gain their own land, to make war on ht= neighbours. When the young king does decide to take his power, he will find he has to challenge the very people who should be his friends and advisors. He will need my lord duke at his side then.’

‘Will we have to go to England and live there? Will I have to live in England?’ I ask anxiously.

‘It is home,’ he says simply. ‘And even at its worst, one acre of England is worth ten square miles of France.’

I look at him blankly. ‘All you Englishmen are the same,’ I tell him. ‘You all think that you are divinely blessed by God for no better reason than you had the longbow at Agincourt.’

He laughs. ‘We are,’ he says. ‘We think rightly. We are divinely blessed. And perhaps when we go to England there will be time for me to show you my home. And perhaps you will agree with me.’

I have a little thrill of pleasure, as if something wonderful were going to happen to me. ‘Where is your home?’ I ask.

‘Grafton, Northamptonshire,’ he says, and I can hear the love in his voice. ‘Probably the most beautiful countryside, in what is the best country in all the world.’

We have one more attempt at scrying at the mirror before it is packed up to travel with us as we start on our journey to England. My lord is anxious for me to predict if it is safe for him to leave France. The Armagnac pretender has no money and no army and is badly advised by his court of favourites, but still my lord John is afraid that if he goes to England there will be no-one who can hold France against this man who claims he is king. I completely fail in my wifely duty to advise him, I see nothing. They sit me on a chair and I stare into the bright reflected candlelight until I am dizzy and – far from fainting – am in danger of falling asleep. For two hours my lord stands behind me and shakes my shoulder when he sees my head nod, until the alchemist says quietly, ‘I don’t think it is coming to her today, my lord,’ and the duke turns and stalks out of the room without a word to me.

The alchemist helps me from the chair and Woodville blows out the candles and opens the shutters to let the smell of smoke out of the room. The small sickle of a new moon looks in on me and I dip a curtsey and turn over the coins in my little pocket and make a wish. The alchemist exchanges a look with Woodville as if they have spent all the evening with a peasant girl who curtseys to a new moon and wishes for a lover, but has no learning and has no vision and is a waste of everyone’s time.

‘Never mind,’ Woodville says cheerfully, offering me his arm. ‘We leave for England in the morning and they won’t ask you to do this for another month.’

‘Are they bringing the mirror with us?’ I ask apprehensively.

‘The mirror and some of the books; but the vessels and the oven and the forge stay here of course, they will continue with their work while we are away.’

‘And do they discover anything?’

He nods. ‘Oh yes, my lord has refined silver and gold to a purer level than any man has ever done before. He is working on new metals, new combinations for greater strength or greater suppleness. And of course, if he could mke the stone itself . . . ’

‘The stone?’

‘They call it the philosopher’s stone, that turns metal to gold, water to the elixir vitae, that gives the owner eternal life.’

‘Is there such a thing?’ I ask.

He shrugs. ‘There have been many reports of it, it is well-known in the old manuscripts that he has had translated here. Throughout Christendom and in the East there will be hundreds, perhaps thousands of men working on it right now. But my lord duke is in the vanguard. If he could find it, if you could help him to find it, we could bring peace to France and to England.’

The noise of the castle packing up and readying for a great journey wakes me at dawn and I go to the chapel to hear Matins as the sun is rising. The priest finishes the service and starts to pack up the sacred pictures and the crucifix and the monstrance. We are taking almost everything with us.

In my own rooms my ladies in waiting are folding my gowns into great travelling chests and calling the pages to cord them up, and the grooms of the household to seal them. The jewel boxes they will carry themselves, my furs will be guarded by the grooms of the household. Nobody knows how long we will stay in England. Woodville becomes very cautious when I ask him. Clearly, my husband is not being adequately supported by his nephew the king, nor financed as he should be by the English parliament that has to raise taxes for the war in France. The purpose of the trip is to make them see that English coins buy French support; and they must pay. But nobody knows how long it will take to make the English understand that they cannot have an army for free.

I am quite at a loss in all the bustle. I have put my books that the Demoiselle left to me for safe-keeping with my husband’s library, and they will be guarded by the scholars while we are away. I have put her beautiful cards with my jewels for safety. Her gold bracelet with the charms I carry in a purse slung around my neck. I don’t want anyone else touching them. I have dressed for the journey and eaten my breakfast, served in my rooms, by maids in a hurry. I wait about, I don’t know what to do to be helpful, and I am too important for anyone to give me a task. The head of my ladies in waiting commands everything in my rooms so I just have to wait for everything to be ready for us to leave, and in the meantime there is nothing for me to do but watch the servants and the ladies running from one task to another.

By midday we are ready to leave, though the grooms of the hall, the stable and the armoury are all still packing things up. My lord takes my hand and leads me down the stairs and through the great hall where the servants are lined up to bow and wish us God speed on our journey. Then we go out into the stable yard, where I blink at the cavalcade preparing to depart. It is like a small town on the move. There is the armed guard: we are travelling with hundreds of soldiers, some in armour but most in livery, and they are waiting beside their horses, taking a last drink of ale, flirting with the maids. There are nearly fifty wooden wagons waiting in order, the ones carrying the valuables at the head of the line, with a guard at the front and back, the boxes chained to the sides of the wagon, sealed with the great Bedford seal. The grooms of the household will ride with these and each has responsibility for his own load. We are taking all our clothes, jewels, and personal goods. We are taking all our household linen, cutlery, glassware,nives, spoons, salt-cellars, spice pots. The household furniture is being shipped too, my lord’s groom of the bedchamber has ordered the careful dismantling of my lord’s great bed with its covers, curtains and tester, and the grooms of my chambers are bringing my bed, my tables, my beautiful Turkey carpets, and there are two whole wagons just for shipping the household tapestries.